Paula Marques (born 1969) has a first degree in Chemistry (1993), a MSc in Chemistry and Physics Teaching (1997) and a PhD in Materials Science Engineering, with specialization in Biomaterials (2003) from the University of Aveiro (UA) in Portugal.
Paula is a Principal Researcher at TEMA – Centre for Mechanical Technology and Automation, Mechanical Engineering Department, UA. Currently is the Deputy-Director for Society and Social Responsibility in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Sub-Director of the research unit TEMA (Centre of Mechanical Technology and Automation) board of Directors, responsible for new areas of specialization.
Her current research interests include the engineering and development of nanostructured multifunctional materials including graphene derivatives such as: (i) mechanical and electrical stimulus responsive 3D graphene-based scaffolds for tissue engineering; (ii) functional graphene-based macrostructures for water remediation; (iii) electrospun graphene/polymer fibres for photocatalysis; (iv) graphene-based materials as mechanical reinforcement of polymer matrixes.
Paula is author of 77+ original research or review papers in international journals (2900+ citations, h=28 – Scopus), about 7 book chapters, 2 books and 3 patents. Paula has been invited to review manuscripts from 30+ different international journals and to evaluate projects from Cost and Era-Net funding agencies. Paula supervised or co-supervised 10 MSc, 12 PhD students, and 8+ post-doctoral fellows. Since April 2019 she is coordinating a FET Open H2020 project, “NeuroStimSpinal: A Step Forward to Spinal Cord Injury Repair Using Innovative Stimulated Nanoengineered Scaffolds". She is also coordinating and co-coordinating several Portuguese Projects obtaining under competitive funding.
Regarding Paula’s pedagogical role, she is the teacher in charge for the 3rd cycle curricular unit Carbon Nanostructures, and teacher of the 2nd cycle curricular unit Technologies and Processes at Nanoscale.
Prof. Jannick Duchet-Rumeau got a PhD diploma of University of Lyon in 1996 focused on modelling of the interface in a polyethylene/glass system tuned by the grafting connecting chains to improve the adhesion properties. She had a post PhD position in Louvain La Neuve (Belgium) where she worked on polymer nanotubes. In 1998, she got a full professor position in 2010 in the laboratory ‘Ingénierie des Matériaux Polymères’ UMR CNRS #5223. Her research topics are related to nanocomposites materials, mesoporous materials, nanomaterials from Ionic Liquids (Head of GDR LIPS http://www.gdr-lips.fr) and tailoring of interfaces/interphases in the heterogeneous materials.
Prof. Jean-François GERARD got his PhD diploma in Polymer Science in 1985 from researches dedicated to syntheses of zwitterionic polyurethanes from sulfobetainic diols for self-emulsifying systems. He joined in 1986 CNRS as permanent scientist and his expertise deals with interfaces in polymer-based materials and nanostructured polymers. He is author of about 240 papers in international journals and 110 invited lectures in international conferences. He acts also as vice-president of the European Center for Nanostructured Polymers) and President of the European Polymer Federation.
Riccarda Antiochia is Associate Professor at Sapienza University of Rome (Italy). She received a MSc degree in Chemistry with honors in 1992 and a MSc degree in Pharmacy with honors in 2009 both at Sapienza University of Rome. In 1994 received the Diploma of Imperial College at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London and in 1996 received a Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences at Sapienza University of Rome. She was awarded of the national scientific qualifications as Full Professor for the scientific sectors CHIM/01, Analytical Chemistry, in 2018, and MED/46, Applied Medical Technologies, in 2019.
She is a Member of the Steering Committee of CNIS, Research Center for Biotechnology applied to Engineering of Sapienza University of Rome from 2011. She is author of 90 papers on international peer-reviewed scientific journals, 3 book chapters and 1 monography.
Her scientific activity is focused on the fields of biotechnology, nanotechnology and analytical chemistry. The main area of research is the design, development and application of electrochemical biosensors for biomedical, food and environmental analysis. More recently, she is involved in the characterization of new nanostructured materials for electrode modification in second- and third-generation electrochemical biosensors, biofuel cells and microneedles-based biosensors development.
Prof. Vladimir Fal’ko is condensed matter theorist responsible for several advances in the theory of electronic and optical properties of atomically thin two-dimensional crystals and fundamentals of nanoelectronics. His current research interests include graphene-based electronic and optoelectronic systems and electronic and optical properties of various atomically thin two-dimensional crystals and their heterostructures. He is one of the initiators of the European Graphene Flagship Project, founder of Graphene Week Conference series and Editor-in-Chief of the IoP Journal ‘2D Materials’. Falko is currently Director of the National Graphene Institute and Professor of Condensed Matter Theory at the University of Manchester.
Liviu Movileanu is now a Professor of Physics at Syracuse University, Departments of Physics and Biomedical and Chemical Engineering. His expertise areas include single-molecule and membrane biophysics, chemical and synthetic biology, biosensors, and functional biomaterials. Liviu Movileanu is also affiliated with the BioInspired Institute, Syracuse, New York. Currently, his research group is funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Professor Rosaria Rinaldi is currently Full Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the Department of Mathematics and Physics “E. De Giorgi” of University of Salento, and she is a member of the Academic University Senate. Since 2019 she is Member of the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) Evaluation Committee for Flag Projects and Interest Projects to be implemented by public research institutions. Prof. Rinaldi is currently in charge of the research center in "Nanomedicine, Nanobioelectronics and Nanobiotechnology", at University of Salento. In 2005 R.R. was awarded the medal of "Le Scienze" and the medal of the President of the Republic (Carlo Azeglio Ciampi) for research carried out in the field of Nanobiotechnology. Since 2010, she was head of the Natural Sciences Area of and vice-director of University excellence school ISUFI till 2020. In 2015 she was visiting professor, winning an international selection for the "Eleonore Trefftz" chair, at the Technical University of Dresden in Germany. She was the coordinator of the doctoral school in Interdisciplinary Sciences and Technologies and Nanoscience at S.S. ISUFI and the coordinator of the doctoral school in Physics and Nanoscience, till 2020. She won the "ITWIIN-High Education" award (2016) and was one of the finalists for the 2017 EuWIIN “European Women Inventors and Innovators Network” contest prize. R.R. has coordinated or been a partner in more than 30 scientific projects at regional, national and EU level, in the last 15 years. R.R. is author and co-author of about 310 papers published in international scientific journals,13 monographs and book chapters, and 12 patents (H-index:40).
Nuno C. Santos was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1972. He graduated in Biochemistry from the Faculty of Science, University of Lisbon, in 1995, and received his PhD in Theoretical and Experimental Biochemistry in 1999 from the same University, although all the experimental work was conducted at Instituto Superior Técnico (Technical University of Lisbon) and University of California (Santa Barbara). Currently, he is Associate Professor with Habilitation of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, and Head of the Biomembranes & Nanomedicine Unit at the Institute of Molecular Medicine (iMM). Among other distinctions, his research work was awarded with the Gulbenkian Prize for young researchers (2001), Dr. José Luis Champalimaud Prize – Basic Research (2004), Dr. José Luis Champalimaud Prize – Applied Research and Technology (2005) and the ULisboa – Caixa Geral de Depósitos Prize (2017). He is (co)author of 170 articles in per-reviewed international journals, which received more than 8300 citations (h-index 49 and i10-index 131, publishing since 1996), presenting a Journal Citation Reports impact factor sum of 876.1 (average 5.2 per article). In addition to these publications, he (co)authored 10 articles in Portuguese scientific journals, 15 book chapters (mostly published outside Portugal, in English), 3 books (editor, published by Wiley, Springer and MDPI) and 2 international patents. Among different National and International research projects, he was the coordinator of a consortium funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union (FP7), including 10 different research groups from Europe and Brazil. He is member of the Executive Committee of the European Biophysical Societies’ Association (EBSA) since 2019, and the Director of the M2B-PhD Doctoral Program in Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics (involving 5 different institutions) since 2016. He was President of the Portuguese Biophysical Society from 2015 to 2021. He has supervised 11 completed PhDs, 8 as main supervisor and 3 as co-supervisor.
Dr. Jun Chen is currently an assistant professor at the Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2016 under the supervision of Prof. Zhong Lin Wang. From 2016 to 2019, he was a postdoctoral research fellow with Prof. Yi Cui at Stanford University. His current research focuses on nanotechnology and bioelectronics for energy, sensing, and healthcare applications in the form of smart textiles, wearables, and body area networks. He has already published 2 books, 86 journal articles and 46 of them are as first/corresponding authors in Nat. Energy, Nat. Sustain., Nat. Commun., Joule, Matter, and many others. He also filed 10 US patents and licensed 1. Jun also received the 2015 Materials Research Society Graduate Student Award, and the 2015 National Award for Outstanding Students Abroad. He is currently an Associate Editor of Biosensors and Bioelectronics, and on the list of the 2019 Highly Cited Researchers from the Web of Science. His current h-index is 57. For more information, please visit www.junchenlab.com.
Miriam Colombo obtained her Master degree in 2008 in Medicinal Chemistry and Technology at the University of Milano with experimental thesis in the Nanobiotechnology and she made the PhD in Biology in 2012 at the University of Milano-Bicocca. In 2010 she worked in the lab of prof. W. Parak, Marburg, Germany. In January 2009, she was awarded of a 12+24 months fellowship in the field of Medical Sciences. From September 2013 to September 2019 she was a researcher in Clinical Biochemistry (BIO/12), at the Dep. Biotechnology and Bioscience of University of Milano-Bicocca. From October 2019 she is associate professor of Clinical Biochemistry at the University of Milano-Bicocca. She is author of 100 scientific publications on peer-reviewed international journals. Official H-Index (Scopus): 33
Petr Šittner is the head of the Department of Functional Materials at Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, Czech Republic since 2009 and the head of Division of Condensed Matter Physics since 2016. He graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics Charles University in 1995, received his Ph.D. in Condensed Matter Physics in 1991 from Czech Academy of Sciences, worked for 5 years as Research Associate at Faculty of Engineering Mie University in Japan and, since 2000 he has been working as senior scientist at the Institute of Physics of the CAS (2012-16 as vice director).
Petr Šittner has been active in the research of martensitic transformations, shape memory alloys and smart engineering materials and composites for over 30 years, published over 250 scientific articles in impacted scientific journals, 5 patents, organized two major international conferences in the SMA field ESOMAT 2009 and SMST 2013 in Prague, served as member of the Board of directors of the SMST ASM International society and currently serves as associate editor of the journal Shape Memory and Superelasticity.
His current research in the field of martensitic transformations focuses on the investigation of deformation processes responsible activated during functional thermomechanical behavior of NiTi based shape memory alloys using thermomechanical testing supported by application of various in-situ methods such as in-situ synchrotron and neutron diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, DIC and EBSD methods in SEM [1-5].
Petr Šittner has been actively involved in designing and building engineering diffractometer BEER at European spallation source currently under construction in Lund Sweden. He serves as a representative of the Czech Republic in the In Kind Review Committee of ESS.
Dr. Larry Cheng is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM) and Materials Research Institute (MRI) at The Pennsylvania State University. His research group focuses on the design and fabrication of biologically inspired stretchable and transient electronics with applications in robotics, biomedicine, and energy. Dr. Cheng has co-authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications and his work has been recognized through the reception of several awards. He also serves as an associate editor for Computers in Biology and Medicine and reviewer for over 120 international journals